Through the lens of the average user fearing OS updates, the whole "online application" makes a lot more sense. These average users can be more comfortable wit

Through the lens of the average user fearing OS updates, the whole "online application" makes a lot more sense. These average users can be more comfortable with online applications because there is no update that the end user is responsible for (or that they know about). Also, when they replace their computer in order to "get rid of" their malware, all of their online applications are still there. I'd never thought of web applications from this perspective before, but it occurs to me that maybe we can thank Microsoft's horrible upgrade path in the early '00s for the large market for online applications today.